My mom wasn't asking. I understood that now.
The second call came Wednesday morning – same careful tone, same neutral phrasing, same invisible scaffolding of a decision already made. "I've set up your room. Miles is excited to have you home. Richard thinks a few weeks will give everyone perspective." Every sentence a closed door disguised as an open hand. She wasn't inviting me home. She was relocating me. And refusing would mean choosing Rhys over my mother publicly, permanently, in a way that couldn't be walked back.
I packed a bag. Not much – clothes for two weeks, my laptop, the notebook I wrote first drafts in. Sienna sat on her bed and watched me fold shirts with the quiet attention of someone who wanted to say something and was choosing not to.
"Two weeks," I said. Not to her. To
